The third race of the iRacing coronavirus shutdown series features the stars and cars of the NTT IndyCar Series racing at a combination of legitimate and fantasy circuits. The first two events have been won by Sage Karam and Scott McLaughlin at Watkins Glen International and Barber Motorsports Park, respectively.

The event at Michigan (2:30 ET, NBCSN) is the first to take place on an oval and is at a venue IndyCar hasn’t visited since the 2007 season.

Earnhardt has long wanted to compete against the current IndyCar Series roster in their weapons of choice and quickly accepted an invitation from the sanctioning body. The 16-time NASCAR Cup Series Most Popular Driver will race in a No. 3 Chevrolet with sponsorship from Nationwide.

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"I might have been crazy enough to take up an offer to run IndyCar in my 20s or maybe my early 30s, but I didn't have the guts for it," Earnhardt said during a Friday IndyCar teleconference. "As I got towards my 40s, I certainly don't have the balls for it today.

"But when I heard there might be an opportunity for me to get out there on a simulator, I'm comfortable on the sim. I've spent a lot of time racing online, so I feel like I can hold my own with most of the customer base on there, and these are real-world guys.

"It's just such an honor, I guess, to be out there and on the track with them."

Earnhardt attended his first Indianapolis 500 in 2019 with NBC Sports and has developed a strong friendship with several drivers since his full-time retirement from NASCAR following the 2017 season. He hopes his participation in the iRacing IndyCar Challenge will provide a spotlight that carries over once the real-world season begins.

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"I think these guys have such great personalities, and they're even more diverse than what we have in NASCAR because they're from all over the world," Earnhardt said. "I think that that's the real value in the series, is the drivers and their personalities and who they are.

"So, I'm fanboying myself just (racing against them) and hearing them talk, interacting with each other, getting to know them better.

"I've got a few friends in the series but certainly want to know the other guys and get to know the rest of them really well, so this is such a great opportunity for me to do that, and I think the fans are really going to appreciate getting the opportunity to see them on the racetrack, on the virtual racetrack throughout this break, to get to know them even more."

Earnhardt says his closest friends in the IndyCar Series are Graham Rahal, Marco Andretti and Simon Pagenaud. However, he has remained close to home when learning the nuances of driving the iRacing IndyCar model.

"I reached out to Jimmie (Johnson) just to get the temperature (and) get an understanding of his experience so far," Earnhardt said. "But I have some guys in the iRacing service, customers that use the car a little bit to offer their advice."

Johnson has entered the first two iRacing IndyCar Challenge events in advance of what he anticipates as a part-time career driving road courses and short ovals once his NASCAR tenure comes to a close after the 2019 season.

"I think he’s going to have a blast doing it," Johnson said during a Thursday NASCAR teleconference. "His experience in iRacing, I think, will help him enter at a higher level than I have so far. But the thing I’ve really struggled with on the IndyCar side, is I’m learning new tracks and a new car."

The IndyCar Series drivers expect something akin to a pack race on Saturday at virtual Michigan. Earnhardt is very proficient at that style of racing in both real life and iRacing when it comes to stock cars, but he isn’t totally sure how to handicap his chances on Saturday.

It’s a different kind of pack.

"The way they have the aerodynamics modeled in the Indy car on iRacing, it's tough for me to understand what of that is realistic and what of that is exaggerated or whatever because the car will get real tight sometimes and I haven't quite really figured out why that happens or how to try to prevent that the best I can …

"Sometimes the car gets runs (and) you're able to just take off and get a run in the draft, and, again, I'm not sure. I want to know why. I want to know why, what produced that run and created that car to take off like that, because I want to be able to do it every time all the time.

"Just trying to figure out what's going on there. I have zero real-world experience in the car, so I don't know what's real and what's not, what's real and what's iRacing. So, I'm just trying to learn as fast as I can."

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